Another successful week

Golly and another week has flown by in Charlie land so where to start.

We didnt do much at the weekend I just rode in the school trying a wider bit I had, NS Vebindend 6 inch. I didnt feel that Charlie liked it that much though.

In Tuesdays lesson we established that my NS Verbindend was upside down very easy to do as it doesnt look that different except for where the little arrow is pointing.

Tori lent me a slightly wider NS Teamup as we had decided that 5.5 inches wasnt enough for Charlie.

We identified that Charlie still has issues on the right rein with stretchinghis left hand side and did lots of shoulder in/shoulder fore exercises to try and help him out.

Wednesday I practiced the work we had done in our lesson but was not riding him that well. He was overbent and had too much inside bend on the left rein and nearly none on the right rein.

Thursday we worked in the school. We should of hacked out but the gales were terrible and it wouldnt have been the best plan. So we worked in the school in the NS Teamp up lent to us by Tori and we worked better than yesterday. Having read so much on nappy horses and the way to fix I decided we were ready for postive reinforcement. This meant hardwork in the school then cool down by going outside. When I say cool down I mean generally relax as we dont work up a sweat.

So Charlie and I pootled down the track to the field and didnt have any naughties at all if you dont count a squeak and attempted turn. The point of the whole exercise was to relax him so we had a little loose rein trot up the field away from home and then walked a very big circle back to the track. Then I halted dropped the reins and let him have a think he put his head down for a graze and he was patted told he was a good boy and when he had his mouth full and raised his head I picked up the reins and returned to the yard.

Friday bolstered by Thursdays success I prepared for more field work. We lunged in the school first over raised poles then whacked my BP on and mounted on the yard. Really glad it was quiet so I walked Charlie quietly on a very long rein to the field. He was a very good boy and in a nutshell we spent 15 minutes walking, halting and trotting on both reins. The worst we had was a loaded shoulder a few times in the direction of the track but thanks to Toris lesson on using body weight and legs I basically rode his shoulder back to where I wanted it to go. The dressage side of things was not pretty as we didnt have a wall to support our aids but that wasnt really the point of the exercise.